This invention relates to the field of integrated analog/digital receivers, including set-top boxes for television receivers and integrated receiver televisions.
Television set-top boxes or integrated receiver televisions will to be required to display pictures from both analog and digital video sources, for example, as may be provided over a broad band network, such as Hybrid (analog/digital) Fiber Coax (HFC) architectures currently being proposed by numerous telephone company's video on demand projects. These architectures would provide both analog and encoded digital video, for example encoded according to MPEG-2 standards, to set-top boxes, and eventually, to television receivers in which the functions of the set-top box have been integrated, so-called integrated receiver televisions. It is necessary to provide an enhanced, unified interface between the analog and digital channels.
Program guide or channel guide features are provided by services which compile and organize program information which can be displayed with or instead of program video. The terms program guide and channel guide are deemed to be equivalent and interchangeable. The information is often organized as a large grid or as a summary banner laid over a portion of the video. More detailed information about particular programs can be accessed by various menu and control functions, usually by means of a remote control device. Examples of information carried are: program start/stop time, program title, program description, program rating, and the like. It should be appreciated that program or channel guide information is not a dynamic signal, but carries essentially the same information for each day, week, etc., to the extent that program schedules are known in advance. It may be sufficient to detect and process program or channel guide information only several times per hour, for example, every fifteen or twenty minutes.
Program or channel guide information has been transmitted in information signals, for example FM radio signals, having no picture video content, that is, not in the conventional format of a video signal. Program or channel guide information has been transmitted with analog video signals, for example, during the vertical retrace interval. Program or channel guide information has been transmitted with digital video signals, for example, as part of the PSI (program specific information) table within a standard encoded transport stream, such as MPEG-2. Alternatively, other methods of delivery supported by MPEG-2 standards can be utilized. Other digital encoding schemes support similar data structures. Program or channel guide information has heretofore not been available for mixed or hybrid (analog/digital) systems, but such a feature is required for a practical hybrid system.